The Proviso (72 page)

Sebastian chuckled. “Yes, she is,” he whispered in
her ear. “Eilis, that’s you. Do you not know that?”

There were people milling all about, but suddenly,
they faded. Eilis sucked in a breath when she realized that, yes,
she was looking at herself and Sebastian. And they looked divine
together. As divine as Jack and Lydia Blackwood.

“No, Sebastian,” she whispered. “That can’t be
me.”

He bent his head and, as she watched him in the
mirror, he kissed her shoulder, then worked his way up her neck to
her ear, his eyes closed. His big hands stroked down her hips and
she shuddered with the exquisite sensations that pulsed through
her. He partook of the corner of her jaw with lips and tongue,
making love to her there, in front of this mirror where she could
watch.

“She is you, Eilis,” he whispered when his mouth
returned to her ear and he opened his eyes to look in the mirror.
“Remember this always, Eilis, because no matter what happens
between us, this is how I see you. This is how I’ve always seen
you, will always see you. You are a goddess, Eilis, a goddess.
Never,
ever
forget that.”

* * * * *

64:
BLOOD & WATER

They got into KCI and drove south straight to Knox’s
house, as he’d requested. She was surprised to know that he lived
so close to her and not in Chouteau City, which was a twenty-minute
drive.

“He hates Chouteau City,” Sebastian told her. “Plus,
he needed a place to hide and he can do that where he lives. You
won’t find it on Mapquest and the satellite images won’t help.”

“Hiding from Fen?”

“Yes.”

“Fen killed his father. Why doesn’t he just . . . ?”
Eilis couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“Kill him? Knox would rather Fen go to jail,
preferably on death row, and the whole world know what he’s done.
If Fen forces his hand, then . . . Yeah.”

Knox had secured his home almost as well as Eilis
had hers, though one could see his entire property through the
plain iron fence. An iron gate stood open, awaiting them.

Eilis was nervous. She hadn’t seen Knox since he’d
unexpectedly dropped by her office last month to say hello and
check on her progress—a kindness that had made her cry after he’d
left. Now, for the first time, she would be meeting him as family,
as a brother who hadn’t known she was his sister, but liked her and
cared about her anyway.

Who didn’t hate her for being Fen’s daughter.

Eilis stepped out of the black Ferrari when
Sebastian opened her door and offered his hand. She turned to find
Knox striding toward her determinedly, in jeans and tee shirt,
looking a lot less intimidating than he did in a designer suit. She
walked around the front of the car hesitantly, but before she knew
it, she was engulfed in Knox Hilliard’s arms.

She began to cry, then sob. Finally. Family who
wanted her and claimed her.

“I knew I liked you,” he murmured, holding on to her
as if he would never let go. She wanted to hold onto him forever,
to make sure that he never went away, that he would never leave her
alone and without family.

But finally he released her and said, “Come in and
we’ll eat and talk.”

Eilis looked around at Sebastian, who leaned back
against his car, his ankles crossed and his arms folded over his
chest. He looked very . . . pleased.

Knox had ordered pizza and Eilis laughed when
Sebastian groused at him for not having any alcohol in the house.
“You should know better than that,” Knox retorted. “If you want
booze here, pack it in and pack it right back out again.”

“I tried to keep some here and the next time I got
here, he’d poured it all down the drain,” Sebastian told Eilis
wryly. “It was expensive, too.”

They all sat around the table and eased into the
conversation with small talk.

“So,” Knox said once they’d begun to decimate two
large pizzas amongst them, Eilis letting Sebastian goad her into
eating her fill, “how is it that you’re Fen and Trudy’s
daughter?”

“I honestly don’t know,” she said. “All I know is my
birth date and their names. And that I’m almost three years older
than you are.”

“That was during Vietnam,” Sebastian observed,
around a mouthful. “Knox, didn’t your dad go? Fen did.”

“Yeah, he did.”

“You’d have to work out dates, but I can see how
that could’ve happened.”

“If that was the case,” Eilis agreed. “I have my
original birth certificate. I was supposed to have been
adopted—several times, actually—but they all fell through and then
I was past the age when people wanted to adopt children. I was
luckier than most of the kids in foster care. I had a fairly decent
caseworker who’d consider my requests and honor them more times
than not.”

She didn’t miss the look that passed between Knox
and Sebastian, but decided to keep her curiosity to herself.

“I found refuge in school. Math wasn’t my strong
point, so I set out to conquer it.”

“And succeeded very well,” Sebastian said, and she
smiled, warmth spreading through her. “What was your strong
point?”

“History. English. I love Shakespeare.”

Both Knox and Sebastian broke out into great bursts
of laughter at that, and though she knew they weren’t laughing at
her, she was still uncomfortable.

“Shakespeare,” Sebastian chortled. “Giselle has a
PhD in English lit. I’m passably versed. Knox knows and adores
every word the man ever wrote—but don’t get him started. He’ll
start reciting his favorite soliloquies and expect everyone to stay
awake.”

“Really?”

“Guess that runs in the blood, too.”

“So Fen— I don’t understand,” Knox said. “He
deliberately didn’t claim you?”

“Yes. I made the mistake of going to OKH for a job
when I was in vo-tech learning how to be a secretary. I was
nineteen. I put my real name on my application to see if that would
help me get the job. Not only did it not get me a job, Fen showed
up on my doorstep to tell me flat out that he wouldn’t claim me and
not to try to pull that stunt again. I was the right age. He took
one look at me and knew I was his daughter.”

Sebastian nodded. “I can see why. Knox’ll look
exactly like Fen in twenty years and sitting together there, you
can tell. Apart, though, no one would put you together.”

“He told me that since I’d gone to all the trouble
to change my last name to use it. He was very upset I hadn’t
changed my first name, too, because it’s so distinctive. I never
told anyone and requested my records sealed after I’d gotten copies
of everything I needed.”

Knox and Sebastian speculated for quite a while on
why Fen had chosen to show his hand when Eilis went into
receivership. Eilis ate, listening to their theories, waiting—

“Eilis, do you know?”

“Yes.” They looked at her expectantly. “He watched
me build HRP. He sabotaged every business deal he could, told
people what a ballbuster I was. So I started trying to think like
Miss Manners, you know: What would Miss Manners do? It threw people
off just enough that I got an edge and it discredited his opinion
of me.”

Sebastian chuckled. “So nobody realized you were
still busting their balls?”

“Or they enjoyed it,” Knox muttered wryly.

Eilis smiled, thrilled to finally be able to talk
about it with people who cared about her, who would understand and
approve.

“Things started going my way, which took a lot
longer than it should have because he had his fingers in every pie
I needed. But I was getting around him, so then he started buying
up as much of my debt as he could, and he’d call the loans
immediately. He nearly bankrupted me a couple of times.”

“And he couldn’t do anything with HRP as long as it
was in the middle of a criminal trial,” Sebastian murmured.

She nodded. “All these years, he’s been working
behind the scenes, but he came to my office after court the day
after Knox assigned Sebastian to me— I panicked. I didn’t know who
was allied with whom.”

Knox sighed. “You thought Sebastian would give you
to Fen.”

“I didn’t know what to think. He said if I told
either one of you who I was, he’d find a way to finish the job
David started.”

They were silent for a while, both Knox and
Sebastian lost in their own thoughts, then Knox asked softly,
“Eilis, why didn’t you just tell me you were my sister some time
during the trial? You and I spent hundreds of hours together going
over your testimony and the paper trails.”

“I thought you would hate me for being Fen’s
daughter and charge me in retaliation. You don’t have the best
reputation in the world. I never understood why you have that
reputation, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. Then after you
put me in receivership— Well, I didn’t know who to trust. I only
knew I couldn’t let Fen get his hands on HRP.”

Sebastian ran a hand down his face. “Which was why
you never went public.”

“I’ve wanted to go public forever, but I didn’t
dare. He’d do to me what you’ve done to OKH. After I found out you
hated Fen, it didn’t matter because I could count on you as an ally
who was stronger than Fen. He came to New York to declare war on me
and didn’t think I’d call his bluff.”

“Eilis,” Knox asked slowly, “why does Fen hate you
so much?”

Eilis pursed her lips, the familiar hurt deep in her
soul not as sharp as usual, more of throbbing ache than a stab. “He
. . . doesn’t.” Both Knox and Sebastian started. “I don’t think.
Trudy does. Well, she hates that I exist. I think he’s just
desperate to keep her secret from coming to light.”

Eilis stopped, felt her eyes well with tears, bowed
her head. Sebastian drew her to him and into his lap.

Knox looked away, Eilis noted, pale beneath his tan,
and she saw a tear track down his cheek and his jaw tense up. “I
hate that bitch,” he murmured. “I’ve always hated her. Even when I
still lived at home, I used Giselle’s mother as my emergency
contact.”

Sebastian grunted. “Pardon my saying so, but that
little ménage à trois that is your parents is seriously fucked up.
At least Oliver wasn’t as whipped as Fen.”

Both Eilis and Knox laughed through their sadness,
yet Eilis felt so much better for knowing that her hatred of her
mother was shared by her brother, that she wasn’t in this alone
anymore.

“Knox,” Eilis began softly, not wanting to know but
needing to ask, “will you take me to meet our sister?”

Sebastian’s hand abruptly stopped caressing her arm.
Knox stared at her, puzzled. “What sister? You mean there’s another
one?”

“Uh— I don’t— All I know is, when he came to see me
last year, he said, ‘I have another daughter. You will
never
measure up to her.’”

Knox and Sebastian both sucked up long, shocked
breaths and they stared at each other, wide-eyed, mouths open. Knox
swallowed. Sebastian’s body shuddered.

“Oh, shit,” Sebastian breathed. “
That’s
what
that’s about.”

Eilis watched them both work through something that
was apparently tremendously significant.

“Gi— Fen’s, uh,
daughter
didn’t take the news
well,” Knox muttered at Sebastian as his jaw clenched. “I called
Aunt Lilly right after I hung up with you. She was
pissed
.
She told me not to tell anyone because she wanted to wait until
Étienne’s fortieth birthday bash to announce it to the tribe at
large.”

Sebastian froze. “She knew very good and well what
would happen.”

“Aunt Lilly said Gi— That she slugged Fen a couple
of times, but then went after Trudy. Backhanded her so hard it put
her on the ground a foot away. It took Bryce
and
Morgan to
pull her off Trudy.”

“Shit. Morgan’s as big as Kenard.”

“Broke a couple of bones in Trudy’s face. Broke her
arm and at least one rib. Left bruises around her neck. So the ER
called the cops and the cops called me. By then, Morgan had already
given me the visual, so . . . ”

Eilis sat and listened to this tale in silence,
completely confused. This daughter, Eilis’s sister, the favorite—
Punched Fen? Beat Trudy nearly to death? On Eilis’s behalf?

“Got no phone call from Trudy wanting to press
charges, so I figure she knew what I’d do—or wouldn’t.”

“And Fen?”

“Oh, he got off light. Nose broken the other way and
a few bruises. She was gunning for Trudy.”

Sebastian sighed and shook his head. “What a
mess.”

“Who,” Eilis asked slowly, “is this other daughter?
And why would she do this? She doesn’t know me and Fen made it very
clear she was his chosen one.”

“Fen doesn’t have another daughter,” Knox snapped,
his cold eyes glittering at Eilis. “He never did. It was a fantasy
he built around a girl he couldn’t control and he loved her for it.
She doesn’t respect him, but she does think he’s funny and so she’s
indulged him for years. When Aunt Lilly told the tribe about you,
she just— She lost it.”

“Man, I wish I’d been there to see that,” Sebastian
muttered.

“Me too. Right now I’m fishing around, see if Fen’s
looking to retaliate. Again.”

Sebastian sucked in a breath and released it on a
long whoosh. “He’d be a fool to try that now.”

Eilis still didn’t really understand. “So who is
this woman?”

Neither of them said anything for a moment. “I
think,” Sebastian finally murmured, “that’s best left for another
time.”

Knox sighed and searched for words. “Fen lied to
you, so for a year, you’ve been thinking you had a sister he loved,
but threw you to the wolves. You need time to get used to the idea
that it was a lie. When you meet her— You need the chance to get to
know her and love her.
She
deserves that chance. It would
hurt both of you if you met her knowing this and possibly resenting
her for it. We don’t want this to color your opinion of her.
Please, Eilis. Trust us. ”